LDA Design

Leonard D Anklebiter's
Web Design Tutorial

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What do you want with web design?

A website that people find, value and use ?
A website that looks good, but like the beauty in the Burqa, remains unseen.
Or one that really iritates people and makes them think you are an idiot!

It largely depends on your web designer / developer / consultant call it what you will!

So, I'm looking to have a new website, what do I do? Well, try following the advice from LDADesign, let Leonard D Anklebiter tell you a few secerets! Actually, not so secret, its a bit like the King who walked out naked, people are too worried about telling the artist that his work has little value or point!

Before starting, lets have some common sense.

The person who comes to your website is like you coming to this one, you can leave it on a whim

You've read this far, so there's been something worth reading. Its easy to read, relevant and easy to find.

There is only one reason to come to a web site, to gain or exchange information, nothing more! (more on this below)

Does your website have unique and relevant information. Or is it a rehash or copy of somebody else's. Basically is there any point for the reader to read on..

Hiring a graphic webdesigner when you want to score well on the search engines is like putting your money on Damien Hirst to win the Booker prize!

Stock photos! I can see no earthly reason to have a stock photo on a website, in particular where it seems to be the main part of the page - unless you are selling stock images!

Imagine this taking up most of the page, what's it for? Selling glasses? Note that they have forgotten to clean them..

Images can serve two purposes, they can illustrate or provide an example of what you are doing - picture painting 1,000 words etc., or they are Bling - breaking up the page and any large amount of text.

A page dominated by a stock photo, can somebody explain the point of that!

Search Engine optimisation

Every designer will claim to offer this. I have yet to meet one who can deliver!

When discussing SEO, remember the target of this is the web user who knows nothing about you, they do not know your name, where you are .. zilch.

They are looking for information either based on their understanding of their problem or a potential solution.

They are not looking for your company name

If they are looking for somebody to carry out an asbestos survey, they will search for asbestos survey, asbestos survey company, or similar.

If you offer that service and promote online, a single bullet point is utterly pointless, especially when the other 100 competitors are really trying hard!

You need to make the search engines aware that you provide asbestos surveys - content and context, lots of it, lots of descriptive text, lots of relevant pages in turn referring to your pages. Your pages tell the web search engines all about asbestos surveys, well the real customer the person who has come to your site through a search term will also benefit. You have established that you know what you are talking about and they might contact you for more information.

Just a bullet point? Well, you will be nowhere on the search listings and even if somebody comes to your site, clearly you know nothing about the subject so they will look for a web site that tells them something.

One day, in my dreams, a web designer will say to a client. "Yes, we are really confident we can design something outstanding, but we need an expert in web promotion, somebody who has specialised in the way people use the web, perhaps somebody else who is an expert in SEO. Working together as a team, we could do amazing things! "

Whoops, I've just woken up!

Website Design

Don't get confused by css, tables, divs, asp, html, aspx, php largely its buzzwords used by designers to diss the other competing designers. The sole point of your website is to gain an attentive audience that then relate in some way to you. They don't care how the website has been written.

Briefing the web designer / developer / promoter

Ask for examples, ask for some generic key terms that a potential user will use to find their sample websites.

Look at their website. Do they have a whole series of pages with no content? If they are selling SEO, can you find their website. Remember - generic terms! In fact, are they number one for their own name!?

(so much more to come...) more to come from ldadesign

Not a stock photo....

And listen to my Friend Monty AKA The SEO Rapper, he knows what is!

The SEO Rapper’s Lyrics

Check it out…

Your site design, the first thing people see.
It should be reflective of you and the industry.
Easy to look at, with a nice navigation
When they can’t find what they wan it causes frustration
A click costs an action. To increase the temptation
Use appealing graphics that create motivation
You have animation please use in moderation
‘Cos search engines can’t index the information

Display the logo of all associations
Highlight your content; therefore that’s an obligation.
Create clean design; you can use some decoration
But try to prevent any client hesitation
Every page that they click should provide an explanation
Should be easy to understand like having a conversation
Create a site style you can use your imagination
But make sure you use correct colour combinations
Do some investigation, looks at other organisations
But don’t duplicate or you might face a litigation
You done? Congratulations start construction

Move into production, please follow these instructions:
Your photoshop functions, slice that design
Do you layout with divs make sure there is a line
Please don’t use tables even though they work fine
When it come to indexing they give searchers a hard time
Make it easy for spiders to crawl what you provide
Removed font type, font colour and font size
No background colours, keep your coding real neat
And tag your look n feel on a separate style sheet
Better results with XMl and CSS,
Now you making progress, a ‘lil closer to success
Describe you doc type so the browser can relate
Make sure you do it great or it won’t validate

Check in all browsers, I do it directly
Gotta make sure that it renders correctly
Some use IE some others use flock
Some use AOL, I use Firefox
Title everything including links and images
Don’t use italics, use emphasis
Don’t use bold please use strong
Cos if u use bold that’s old and wrong

You use CSS your page should load quicker
Your client’s satisfied like they feasting on a Snickers
They stuck on your page like you made it with a stickers
And then they convert now that the real kicker

Make u a lil richer, your site a lil slicker
Design and code right man I hope u get the picture
What I’m telling you is true man it should be a scripture
If it’s built right you’ll be the pick of the litter
Everyone will wanna follow you like twitter

Competition will get bitter
You will shine like glitter
If u tryna grow; your company will get bigger
Design and code right man can you get with it?

LDA Design

Leonard D Anklebiter's Web Design Tutorial